Brexit and the City Saying No to the Princes of Europe: The City of London as a World Financial Centre following Brexit Or Passport to Pimlico: The City of London’s post-Brexit future depending on whether it is located inside or outside Pimlico or even possibly Latvia Professor David Blake* Cass Business School City University of London
[email protected] March 2017 [v10] * I am most grateful to Kevin Dowd, Tim Congdon, Daniel Corrigan, Martin Howe QC, Laurence Jones, Edgar Miller and Patrick Minford for invaluable discussions and support during the preparation of this paper. Highlights On 23 June 2016, the British people voted to leave the EU. The prime minister’s Lancaster House speech on 17 January 2017 made it very clear that this meant also leaving the single market, the customs union and the European Economic Area, membership of which means accepting freedom of movement. This has powerful implications for the City: • It is unlikely that business with the EU27 will be conducted via passports in future. • Instead, and depending on the degree of co-operation from the EU27, the City should plan its future operations using either: o a dual regulatory regime, based on a third-party expanded equivalence model with guarantees about how equivalence will be granted and removed, or o the World Financial Centre model where the City ‘goes it alone’. • Transitional arrangements will also depend on the degree of co-operation from the EU27. It is in everybody’s interests that any transitional arrangements are kept as short term as possible, no longer than is needed to bridge the gap between the UK’s exit from the EU and the conclusion of any formal long-term trading agreement with the EU.